Games that require a monthly subscription

Post by **maherie** » 13 Jan 2006, 09:38

What do you guys think about these? I'm kinda of tempted to get city of Heros but the subscription side of things seems wierd.

How does it work, set up a credit card payment and off you go??

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 13 Jan 2006, 11:16

I think you can get City of Heroes and City of Villains for the same 'all in one' subscription. That's a pretty good deal, I guess...

I don't really like subscription games because I don't want to outlay Ã‚Â£x a month on a game that's already cost me Ã‚Â£30-35. If the games were cheaper, I could deal with it; say, Ã‚Â£15 for the game, and then a Ã‚Â£5-8 fee... but the early games had exorbitant monthly fees...

I think it's pretty much 'credit card and away'. :)

Post by **maherie** » 13 Jan 2006, 13:09

That's the same thing that I think about the whole ordeal. I'm really having double thoughts about doing it, I mean yeah the games sounds cool, but subscription? I don't want to keep on paying to play!

caevob · Post by **caevob** » 13 Jan 2006, 13:40

I play World of Warcraft and to me the monthly outlay is very much worth it. Mainly due to the massive amount of time I play.

I have been playing for arounf 11 months now any have not bought a game since then. I may play COD or Rome:TW now and again but WOW is far more fun due to the social aspect.

To be realistic i have saved money playing WOW but on the down side I have missed the excitment of all the big titles of the year (HL2, COD2, expansions etc.).

I would say if you like all the latest games when they come out, dont bother with an online game, they suck your life away form you (good thing i dont have one :D )

Of course I can buy all the games I want on budget :D

The money aspect is best broken down appox. Ã‚Â£10 on subscription or Ã‚Â£40 on coffee a month (Evil Starbucks). just braek it down into hours played.

Oh and you get the first month free so you can stop and not pay from there.

Post by **maherie** » 13 Jan 2006, 14:45

that's true, I didn't think about the try it first if you like it, keep going, if not, just uninstall it.

Still though, I don't want to get sucked into that online shit, I play enough games as it is.

Post by **ctrlsteef** » 13 Jan 2006, 14:49

I believe guildwars is free after you bought it, isn't it? Same type of gameplay but without the need to play because you have to pay. (gheghe, that rhymes)

caevob · Post by **caevob** » 13 Jan 2006, 15:06

indeed it is

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 13 Jan 2006, 16:21

When I've got a broadband connection again during the week, I'm contemplating getting Guild Wars... :D

Komoto · Post by **Komoto** » 13 Jan 2006, 22:16

I've been playing mmorpg since Ultima Online. I think they are very much worth the price (if you're having fun, of course!) Most bundle a free month with purchase, so you can check it out and see if you like it.

Right now I'm on Sony's Station Pass, which gives me access to a bunch of games: Star Wars Galaxies, Everquest and Everquest II, Planetside and Matrix Online to name some. I play SWG, EQ2 and PS. Also subscribed to Eve Online.

siorai · Post by **siorai** » 13 Jan 2006, 22:24

I played City of Heroes/Villains for about a year. I would say that it was worth every penny. Rarely do I find a game that I want to play that much. It's just insanely fun when you're with a good group of people.

But on the general topic of pay to play games, I look at it like this:

If you go to two movies a month, that's at least $15. $15 for 3-4 hours of entertainment. I could easily play 3-4 hours of City of Heroes in one night. For a dollar per hour comparison, depending on how much you end up playing, a pay to play game is going to actually be way cheaper than most any other form of entertainment out there.

Another point: Over the course of a year, I played a total of $325 for City of Heroes. $35 for CoH, $50 for CoV and $240 in monthly fees (I'm Canadian.) Compared to non-pay to play games, that equals about 5 new games (at $65 each). Even if there were 5 games in a year that I wanted (there definitely isn't because most games are complete crap now), you looking at an average of 20 hours of playtime per game for a total of 100 hours. Again, pay to play gives you far more bang for your buck.

I guess if you're into certain games like BF2, Counterstrike, etc you get unlimited replay value for free, but for myself, I'm not into those types of games.

As far as I'm concerned, pay to play, as long as it's a game you're going to play a fair bit (you probably will anyways since you're paying for it) are definitely worth the money. Also, at least with a pay to play game, you're kindof assured of getting constant support. Look at how many games get released and might get a patch or two and then support is pulled. Hell, some game sbarely get out the door before they're canned. Hello UBISoft and VUGames!

LuckMC11 · Post by **LuckMC11** » 14 Jan 2006, 05:49

i think games that require paid subscriptions are totally not worth it...think about it....like WoW...costs $50...then u gotta pay like $15 or $30 per month...that's stupid...if the game was FREE...and u had 2 pay less than $10 per month....i would've thought about it...but then again...think about...$50 at the beginning...then $30 per month....say u play for a year....30x12=$360 per year JUST to play online...then the initial $50...so 360+50=$410....that's BS!!!!

Post by **skipclarke** » 14 Jan 2006, 07:31

Go ahead and try it. It seems to have piqued your interest so why not give the free trial a shot?

Post by **skipclarke** » 14 Jan 2006, 13:47

Luck,

I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers... I don't know of any MMO that costs $30 per month. I would say that different MMO games have differing amounts of value, just like "off-line" games.

Guild Wars is around $40 for the game, and then no monthly fee. That's pretty easy math.

COH/COV are $40 or so each. I played COH for a long time. My defunct SG site can be found at http://www.assaultrecon.com COH dropped a new "issue" about every two months. This added new powers, new enemies, new missions and new areas. And these were major upgrades. So, you basically got a "free" expanion every 60-90 days. Considering the $15 a month fee, you get all the online play (and there is an expense to provide that) plus the new content for about $30. Sounds about like the price of an "off-line" game expansion to me.

WOW is still something like $40, and then you have the $15 fee. They just had their first major expansion, after about 14 months. WOW is a great game, and if you put a lot of hours into it, then I believe the monthly fee is still worth it. A lot of off-line RPGs say something like "40+ hours of play." If the game costs $50, that's about a $1 an hour. Say I play WOW 2 hours a night, M-F. That's about 40 hours a month, and plenty of people do that (and then some). There is your $1/hr. But, in that next month, you get another 40 hours for only $15. That is $.375 per hour.

Even if you play "slow" on your off-line RPG, and get 80 hours out of it. That's still about $.50 an hour. The MMO ends up being a better deal. Now, some people might say what about the online play for FPS and RTS. Well, the game dev/pub usually doesn't host the FPS servers. Those are hosted by fans, clans and other companies. They host servers (of varying quality) for free, or some make you pay. RTS are usually hosted by the dev/pub, but that is a whole lot less bandwidth, and there is no persistent world to maintain and no additional content to develop.

Every expansion I've seen for an FPS or RTS has cost more money. Not so with many MMOs. Now, the Sony MMOs break the mold on this and you have to pay for the monthly and the expansion. That can get expensive if the monthly is too high, or the expansion is expensive and/or doesn't have a lot of content. Sony has helped to alleviate this by offer multiple games (Station Pass) for one price. You're monthly fee then goes down to $3-$5 per game, but you have to buy each game and they pump out expansions. EQ has what a 100 expansions? :lol: EQ2 already has one or two, and SW has three I believe.

In the end, it's a value proposition. How much will you play the game? Will you play enough to play for at least a couple of months and get your cost per hour down? Do you play a lot of other games that might take you away from the MMO?

Personally, I really liked them. At the moment, I just don't have the time (or a computer in the case of GW or COH) to play them. I hope to again, soon. My favorites were GW and COH, over WOW.

Also, I'd really like to see some WSGF guilds on the MMOs, especially since they all seem to support widescreen.

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 14 Jan 2006, 23:45

I still remember the days when the games would cost $50 in the States and Ã‚Â£35 in the UK, but would then have monthly fees in the States of around $15-20, and yet the UK fee would be anything from Ã‚Â£15 to Ã‚Â£25. ($20 at the time was about Ã‚Â£11...)

If I lived in the States, I'd play MMORPGs, and I wouldn't have a problem. :) Things (ie: prices) have got better, and with Guild Wars, I'm very tempted indeed... ;)

Gabbo · Post by **Gabbo** » 15 Jan 2006, 00:29

I go through MMO phases. I can get really into one and play it for around 2-3 months non-stop. But inevitably, I will grow bored and move on. The MMOs I have played the most are SWG and CoH/CoV. I have quit and rejoined both of these games numerous times. I am now finally giving WoW a shot, although it seems exactly like EQ2 to me. From everything that I had read, people were vehemently stating that WoW was a much better game than EQ2, but so far it is damn near identical as far as the game mechanics and quest mechanics.

The great thing about Guild Wars is that you have no pressure to play the game. Whereas a subscription fee based MMO does. When you're paying $15 dollars a month to play a game, you feel obligated to play it.

FramerateUK · Post by **FramerateUK** » 16 Jan 2006, 00:18

I would love to play WOW....

but i play too many different games to be stuck playinig one all the time, id feel i had to play it cause i was paying. And that would spoil other games for me.

I did play planetside for a few months... but got bored, and didnt really play it enough to warrant the monthly fee.

Post by **skipclarke** » 16 Jan 2006, 00:57

The great thing about Guild Wars is that you have no pressure to play the game. Whereas a subscription fee based MMO does. When you're paying $15 dollars a month to play a game, you feel obligated to play it.

That was the one issue I had with WOW. I was playing COH when I had plenty of free time and a great Supergroup. But, WOW came out after I had a kid. It started to feel like a job. GW helped a lot with that aspect.

Gabbo · Post by **Gabbo** » 16 Jan 2006, 02:27

I really like the ideology behind Guild Wars. It's like the spiritual successor to Diablo and Battle.net but with a much more MMO type of feeling to it. The money that they hope to gain is simply through software sales and releasing expansions.

This accomplishes 2 great feats (at least in theory).

1. The "No Pressure" play mentioned above.

2. You know that the developers will be working on substantial and meaningful expansions in order to make money. Some MMOs seem to stagnate for long periods of time before developers begrudgingly release new content (that is often broken).

We shall see where Guild Wars will rank amongst the other MMOs in due time. But for now... I love it even though I don't play it constantly.

funch · Post by **funch** » 16 Jan 2006, 20:17

CoH rocks, man. I had a toon named "The Vacuum Salesman" and he was a cigar smokin creep in a suit. :)

But I play EQ2 now.

Try it. The character creation part is awesome.

Aloha to you haoles.

Iaacp · Post by **Iaacp** » 16 Jan 2006, 20:36

I play WoW and used to play DAoC. Both were very good. The subscription price was worth it to me

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